Waters Under Earth

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum - harnums@hotmail.com

All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shogakukan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.

Commentary of all sorts, public or private, welcomed.

Homepage at:  http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/9758

Chapter 31 : Totentanz (4 of 4)

     They sat on the upper slopes of the land, looking down upon
Jusenkyou.  Moonlight fell from the sky above and turned the mist
clinging to the pools to spun silver.  Haphazardly scattered 
across the terrain, skeletal trees twisted gauntly with the wind.  
Insects chirped and chittered in the grass nearby, and small 
animals scuttled through the underbrush just out of the range of 
the light from the lamp the Guide had set out; in the distance, a
bird sang, and it seemed as if the very night were alive.

     Next to Akane, Plum settled more comfortably into her 
father's lap and stared raptly down towards Jusenkyou, eyes 
bright in the darkness.  "It start soon, father?"

     The Guide was consulting a small notebook, occasionally
making marks with a pen.  "It start soon, Plum."

     "What are we going to see?" Rouge asked, toying with a
bangle on her wrist as she stared at the grass.

     "Wait," the Guide replied, ticking off something in his
notebook.  "It not be long."

     Akane sighed softly and looked up at the sky.  The moon was
waning further and further with each passing night.  A hand fell
on shoulder, and she looked over to Ryoga's concerned face.

     "We're getting closer to finding the answers we need, 
Akane," he said reassuringly.

     Akane sighed again.  "Answers, maybe," she said wearily.  
"But are we any closer to finding him?  We seem to be doing
better at losing people than finding them."
          
     Genma and Happosai hadn't been back for dinner tonight.  It
was something she was trying not to think about much.  She wasn't
particularly worried about either of them, as long as they were
together - Happosai was as close to invincible as almost anyone,
and he'd look after Genma if it came down to it - but the 
suddenness of their departure coupled with Tarou's appearance was 
troubling to say the least.

     Ryoga looked as if he had some response, then shook his head
and turned away from her.  In her father's lap, Plum yawned.  
"How much longer, father?"

     The Guide smiled and ruffled his daughter's hair.  "Soon,
Plum, soon."

     "The birds have stopped singing," Rouge declared, staring
down raptly at Jusenkyou as if she saw something in it none of
the others did.  A silence had fallen over the land.  No insects 
chattered in the grass; no sound of animals moving; no call of 
birds in the night.  No wind either; even the leaves of the trees 
had stopped moving.

     Akane watched and waited.  There was a feeling in the air, a
charge like that just before a storm.  But the night sky was
clear, the few clouds small and vague.  

     Then there was a humming sound, low and voiceless music
coming from the air around them.  Akane stared; down below,
the mist that surrounded the pools had begun to glow with a soft
golden light.  The hum rose in pitch, and there were other sounds
in it now; snatches of voices, the sound of birds, the cries of
animals.  

     *No, I don't want to go in there*~*Shhhhhhhh*~*Father help
me*~*Shhhhh*~*Nonononono*~*Shhhhhh*~*I WILL NOT BE BOUND~*Shhhh*~
*I WILL NOT BE BOUND~*Shhhhhh*~*Hold her she's breaking free*~
*Shhhh*~*Mother*~*I WILL KILL YOU ALL*~*Father*~*KILL*~*Mother*~
*YOU*~*No*~*ALL*~*Ranma*

     Akane gaped.  That last voice, interspersed with the others
in the mad symphony of animal and human cries, was hers.  The
pools were shining with light, turning the mist into a cloud of
fire.  The light flickered and twisted in strands through the
translucence of the mist; around her, the faces of the others 
were rapt and shocked.  The voices, human, animal, cried and 
screamed around them.  One was familiar; one was hers.

     The Guide and Plum seemed as entranced as the rest of them.
The voices rose in volume until the seemed to engulf all senses,
until it seemed the very air danced before the eyes at the sound;
then, slowly, they died away.  The light began to disappear, 
until the only light left was again that of the Guide's lantern.  
The entire event had taken no more than a minute.  It had been 
almost indescribable; the mad terror of the sound, the spectral
beauty of light and mist interwoven.

     Akane turned to the Guide, and forced words past her dry 
throat.  "What was that?"

     "None of the Guides ever really sure," the Guide explained.
He indicated his small book.  "We make records, try to predict
when it happens.  It follow a cycle, over ten year period.  We
not know why."

     "But we're going to find out," Plum declared, clambering out
of her father's lap and standing up.  "If father doesn't, I will
when I'm the Guide."

     "Maybe it's the souls," Ryoga said softly.  "The souls of
all that have drowned at Jusenkyou, coming back home."

     Akane looked at him flatly.  "I heard my voice in there."

     Ryoga didn't respond.
     
     Rouge clambered to her feet and hugged her arms tightly
around herself.  "I heard Ashura," she said in a small, 
frightened voice.  "She was calling to me.  She wanted me to come
back to her."

     Akane turned away from Ryoga, immediately concerned.  "You
feeling okay, Rouge?" she asked as she stood.  The other girl 
looked pale and shaky, scared even.

     "I'll be okay," Rouge replied, giving Akane a weak smile.
"I don't really want to be here anymore.  Can we head back?"

     "Sure," Ryoga said gently.  "It's getting late anyway.  
Let's go and see if Shampoo's back from the Council meeting yet."

     Akane nodded and turned to look at the Guide.  He was     
standing by his daughter, one plump hand on her shoulder; the two
of them looked down on Jusenkyou, as if unaware of the presence 
of anything else.  "Thanks for your help."

     The Guide looked back at her.  "Sorry I not remember more,     
guest."  He looked disturbed, and there was an odd edge of stress
to his voice.  "If I think of anything, I come and tell you."

     "Thank you," Akane said.  "You take care."  She leaned down,
hands on her knees.  "Bye, Plum.  Look after your father."

     Plum nodded gravely and held up her arms to her father.  He
picked her up with a smile on his face, and the two stood 
watching them walk away, Plum waving until she was out of their
sight.
     
**********

     Mousse walked slowly down the hallway.  Behind him, the
night wind followed, and as he passed the lamps that Lang Bei had
left burning upon the walls, it snuffed them out.

     The house fell into darkness as he walked.  His 
grandmother's house now, the ancestral home of his family.  From
room to room he went, putting out the lights until the entire
dwelling lay shrouded, blacker than the night outside.  Where 
he placed his feet, wood aged and darkened, fabric faded and
unravelled, and stone cracked.

     Last he came into a small room with chairs before a massive
stone fireplace.  Here there was light, though not light as any
might imagine; in the bare hearth, flames flickered pale as snow
behind an iron screen, and only he could see them.  There were
faces in them; so many faces, so many names.  Nothing but that,
the white flames that pierced even the dark haze of his blindness.
So bright they were, so beautiful.

     Above the mantle, the spear that rested was wreathed as well
in palest flame from point of blade to butt of shaft; burn it 
did, yet it was not consumed.  Aching, pained, desiring and blind
in the darkness, he reached out and closed his hands upon it.  
The flames ran up his arms and rimmed his body, and he burned 
without heat or pain.  Like a spectre he shone in the darkness,
and the light of the spear and his light were as one.  The flame
ran up his face, caressing his cheeks, and touched his eyes.  He
opened his mouth, as if he would scream, but there was no sound.

     By the time it ended, the night wind was gone, and so was 
nearly all the light.     
          
**********

     They saw the torch-fires in the centre of the village as
they came to the top of a hill.  It was late, later than they
had thought, and no lights burned behind the windows of most of
the houses; but in the centre a ring of fire blazed, held up by
hundreds of Joketsuzoku.

     "What's going on?" Ryoga muttered, pausing in his walking to
stare down.

     "Another ceremony, I expect," Akane replied.  "They seem big
on ceremonies."

     "No," Rouge said softly, running a hand through her bangs.
"Something is wrong.  I can feel it.  Let's hurry."

     They hurried down the hill and through the wide dusty
streets of the village, past darkened houses at the fringes and
into the more crowded central area.  At the edges of the crowd
they stopped, looking for a familiar face, any familiar face, and
finding none.  All the Joketsuzoku in the crowd seemed to hold a
torch, and the flickering light played across their faces, making
each one seem menacing and unfriendly.

     "Ask someone what's going on," Akane said to Rouge.  The
older girl said something in Chinese to a middle-aged man whose
eyes bulged as he stood at the edge of the crowd, half with rage
and half with fear.

     The man glanced back, and snapped something off before
pushing his way deeper into the crowd, torch held high.  Rouge
went pale, and she turned.

     "They're executing the prisoners," she said.
     
     "What!" Akane said disbelievingly.  She began to try and
push her way through the crowd.  "Let me through!" she said,
using her elbows, her entire body.  Angry shouts in Chinese
surrounded her, a few hands grabbed at her - and then Ryoga was
beside her, simply plowing his way through.  Anyone standing in
his way moved or was moved.  Akane followed in his wake, all
thought almost drowned out by the babble of angry voices and the
glaring light of torches.

     They reached the centre far faster than it seemed they
should have.  Fang Shi and Bi Shou stood there; they seemed to
bear a dozen minor but bloody wounds between them.  Five tall
Joketsuzoku warriors held the two weakly-struggling Phoenix to
the ground, pressing their faces into the dirt before the feet of
the two Council members.  Wings and hands were bound behind their
backs, and there was blood in the woman's dark hair.  As Akane
and Ryoga stepped into the ring formed by the crowd, one of the
Joketsuzoku kicked the winged man squarely in the ribs, and his
high scream pierced the babble of voices like a knife.

     "What are you doing?" Akane snapped, striding forward from
the turmoil of the crowd.  
     
     Bi Shou regarded her as if she were a mildy annoying
parasite, and then spat in the dirt at her feet.  "Go away,
outsider filth."

     Ryoga clenched his fist, uncaring of the angry stares of the
Joketsuzoku all around.  "Watch how you speak to her," he 
growled.

     Fang Shi took a step forward, past the prisoners, and looked
up at them with glittering black eyes.  There was a bloodstained
bandage wrapped around one stick-thin forearm, and a shallow cut
across her withered forehead.  The rage in the old woman, it
seemed, had long gone past hot to the chill of ice.  "This is no
concern of yours, outsiders.  You have been welcomed among us as
friends; do not think it gives you the right to enter an
Execution Circle.  Do not interfere in our business."

     "Your business?" Ryoga asked incredulously.  "Killing
innocents is--"

     "Innocents?" Fang Shi interrupted.  "The rest of the Council 
is dead, you imbecile.  Slaughtered by these monsters.  Bi Shou 
and I barely managed to escape them."

     Akane felt all the blood drain from her face in an instant.
"Shampoo?" she whispered, her tongue thick in her mouth.

     Fang Shi's voice seemed to carry a genuine grief in it.
"She was right behind us when we forced our way out.  Lang Bei
too, but she took a sword through the heart; we brought her body
back, but there were so many of them... Shampoo..."  She bowed 
her head.  "I am sorry, child."

     Tears blurred Akane's vision.  "No!" she snapped.  "Shampoo
can't be dead!  What really happened?"

     "They're all dead," Fang Shi said softly.  "All we can do 
now is avenge them."  She looked around at the crowd, and said
something in Chinese.  A muted roar rose, gathered like an ocean
wave, and then broke in a frenzy of battle cries.  Torches 
lifted higher.

     Ryoga spoke.  He had been deadly silent for a time, ever
since Fang Shi had first spoken about the death of the Council,
but now his voice was deep and heavy.  "The Phoenix killed them?"
he asked softly.  "Killed Shampoo and Lang Bei and all the rest?"

     "Yes!" Bi Shou snapped.  "Now go!"

     "Incredible," Ryoga said softly.  "Ranma, Mousse and I went
through dozens of them like they were nothing, and yet they 
manage to kill a dozen warriors as fine as the Joketsuzoku 
Council and force the two survivors to flee like cowardly dogs."

     Bi Shou's eyes narrowed.  "You call us liars and cowards?" 
she hissed.  "You dare, outsider filth?"

     "I call it suspicious," Ryoga answered.  "And whatever
happened, these two--" He indicated the two Phoenix with his
hand.  "--were prisoners, and had nothing to do with it.  
Whatever your laws are, I hope you don't execute people for
crimes they don't commit."

     "For the crimes of their people, we will take their lives," 
Fang Shi said with deadly surety.  "For the deaths of the 
Council, we will wreak such a vengeance upon the Phoenix that 
time shall never forget it."

     "Let them go, Fang Shi," Akane said softly, still aching
with grief for Shampoo.  "Don't do this.  You can't turn back
once you do this."

     "I am already too far to turn back," Fang Shi answered just
as softly.  She sounded almost regretful.  "Go away from here,
outsiders.  You have no place in this.  Your vanished friend is
not here, and Shampoo is dead."

     "You're lying," Ryoga stated bluntly.  "Something about this
whole story stinks."  He glanced around at the angry faces of the
crowd; an occasional war cry still sounded from them.  "I know
some of you can understand me.  They're lying to--"

     "I have heard enough of this," Fang Shi snapped.  She darted 
forward; withered fingers touched Ryoga's hip, and his leg 
crumpled beneath him.  With a surprised cry, he fell to one knee,  
and her other hand lashed out and struck a point on his neck.  
Without a sound, he collapsed flat on his face, eyes glazing as
he toppled.

     "Ryoga!" Akane cried.  She turned; out of the corner of her
eye, she saw a Joketsuzoku warrior raising her sword above the 
heads of one of the Phoenix.  The edge of the blade glistened 
razor-sharp, swimming hypnotically with firelight.  Transfixed, 
Akane stared for a moment.  The face of the winged woman who lay 
below the arc of the sword was beyond terror.  Inexplicably, she 
remembered the sound of Kima's laughter as the waters closed over 
her head.

     The two Joketsuzoku holding the Phoenix woman pressed her
down by the shoulders.  As if defeated, she lowered her head.  
Tears splashed upon the fire-litten earth, tiny puddles in the
dust.  Time seemed to slow; a hundred angry faces stared at her
from the crowd.

     The sword was raised higher, and Akane moved.  Bi Shou 
realized what she was doing a moment later; too late, though, to 
stop her.  She hit the unexpecting Joketsuzoku with a straight 
blow to the stomach, and heard the woman gasp as the air rushed 
out of her.  A grappled wrist and a twist of her arm slammed the 
woman hard to the ground, and sent her sword spinning away to the 
edge of the crowd.

     The world seemed to go back to normal; the red haze of anger
dropped from her eyes, and she looked down into the surprised
face of the winged woman.  She had very green eyes, startling 
against the pale skin of her face and the darkness of her hair.
Around her, the indignant voices of the crowd rose to a fever
pitch.

     The Phoenix woman opened her mouth.  Akane never heard what
she said, but always wished she had.  To her left, she heard a
cry of rage, and then there was a blinding pain in her ribs.  She
stumbled, dropped to one knee, and someone kicked her in the side
of the head - darkness threatened to enfold all.  Angry voices 
were everywhere, but Bi Shou's filled the world.

     "Outsider scum!" And another kick to her ribs, hard enough
to bend them, not hard enough to break.  "Filth!" Behind her 
knee, in the soft part of the joint.  "Japanese whore!"

     Then to her stomach, and it felt as if something broke 
inside her.  Bile filled her throat, threatening to choke her.  
Then, almost mercifully, she finally succumbed, and let the black 
river of unconsciousness carry her far, far away from here, and 
from all the pain that came with it.
     
**********

     Mousse stirred on the floor.  He groaned softly, and sat up,
rubbing his head.  He remembered very little; the plane breaking
apart, the rush of air, the mountains.

     He could not see, even with his eyes open.  There was
darkness all around, but not even the darkness of lightlessness.
He was, he realized, not knowing precisely how he knew, blind.
Somehow, he didn't care.

     Sensitive fingers searched across the floor, brushed against 
something slender and warm to the touch.  His hands closed around
it, and he lifted it.  A staff, perhaps, he could not be sure.

     Something important he had to remember.  He didn't know what
it was.  Tracing his hands along the length of what he held, he 
suddenly cried out in pain as a sharp edge sliced into his palm.
     
     Gasping raggedly, he raised the deep cut to his mouth and
sucked on it.  The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, and a
sudden shock ran through him.  His vision turned white.  A roar,
like all the oceans of the world battering against all the rocks,
filled his ears.

     He fell back, insensate.  His hands traced the shaft of the
spear.  He felt it grow warmer beneath his touch, then hot, so
hot it almost hurt to hold.  But hold it he did, and he rose to
his feet clutching the spear as if it were the most precious
thing in all the world to him.

     A bead of blood rolled across his hands.  White, white,
still blindingly white was his vision.  He felt himself smile.  
He did not understand why.

     As if by instinct, he cradled the spear in his bleeding 
hand, and sliced into his other palm with the razor-edged head.
Without a sound of pain, he lifted the spear above his head in
both hands.

     Shapes began to emerge from the indistinctness of the white.
Chairs, the floor, the fireplace - familiar shapes, but no
comfort in them.  The spear was a brand in his hands, searing 
his flesh, yet soothing him also.  His blood was upon it, upon
blade and shaft.  Carved on the dark wood, characters that he did 
not know the meaning of glowed with pale fire tinged scarlet.

     He laughed.  Joyously, delightedly, as his vision came back
sharper than ever it had before, even when wearing his glasses.
He wore no clothing, he realized.  Laughing still, he went up the 
stairs and to the small room that had been his.  He drew forth a 
robe, black as starless night, that the traditions of his family
would have had him wear upon his wedding day.  In the room he had 
been lain in, he drew forth a cloth-wrapped object from a small 
chest and tucked it away.  All the while he laughed, not knowing 
why.

     Out into the village, ignoring the crowd and the circle of
torches.  No one saw him.  He did not wish them to.  To the
north he went, walking without cease for what must have been 
miles.  No laughter now; silence.  Blood upon the spear.

     He walked to the top of a hill, an unremarkable one it 
seemed except for being the largest in the area.  Its height was
middling in the shadow of the mountains that surrounded the 
valley.

     Above the hill, a circle of clouds boiled in the sky,
blotting out the stars, fierce and dark.  He raised the spear in
one hand, blade pointing to the clouds and the hidden stars, and
called.  There was an answering sound, a noiseless thunder that
shook the earth beneath his feet, and he pointed the spear
towards the grass and bright flowers of the hill.

     The clouds boiled down in a column of roiling grey, touched 
the head of the spear and began to gather before him.  A shape 
formed, cloudy at first, pale as moonlight and coalescing slowly 
into solidness.  Even when it was solid, though, the starlight 
and moonlight shone through every part of its body but the eyes.  
Those were blank and rolling orbs of white fire, matched by what 
lay beneath the eyelids of he who was now the master of the 
steed.
     
     Mounted, without saddle or bridle, he took to the air.  On
the ground below, four hoofprints burned cold upon the grass.  In
him was something beyond pain, beyond all memory.  He had been 
Mousse; he had loved Shampoo, had suffered for her, finally lost 
her.  And he was something else altogether now.

     He flew.  So high it seemed he might touch the stars, that
his spear might pierce the moon.  His hair streamed behind; white
fire burned in his eyes.  Silent his steed was, pacing wingless
upon the blank air, driving them higher towards the stars.
     
     They dipped once, and almost before he knew, he stood on his
feet before a cave.  The mouth yawned black, the depths within so
deep they might well have been endless.  Behind him was a desert.
He knew this place, had always known it.  Water flowing.  Blood
upon the spear.

     He stepped within.  Behind him, the pale horse stood as
sentinel, unmoving.  He met her in the darkness, saw with eyes of
white fire that her lips were red and her eyes were black, and
upon one cheek there lay a long white scar.

     "Guardian," his lady said, and it was his name, it was all 
his names.  "Spearwielder.  Come."

     She gestured, and he was hers, and he wept for his own
innocence lost, and she cradled him and drew him down with her
upon the cold stone floor.  The spear clattered to the floor,
rolled away to rest against the wall.

     And she was his, he was hers, she was everything, everything
he had ever needed, lips cold, body warm.  His hands touched her,
and his wounds healed, and he was consecrated in her name.  Blood
upon the spear - desire beyond all desire.

     "Lady," he said at the end.
     
     "Go forth," she replied, stroking his hair.  "It is not the
end yet.  Soon it will be, and you will be mine forever, beloved,
and I shall be yours."  She touched his face.  "Then and 
forever."

**********
     
     The raven watched the spearbearer mount back up and soar off
into the sky.  Once he was out of sight, the messenger took to
flight as well, winging his way across the desert.  He had waited
to see that after bearing his message to Chenmo Shan, and 
receiving one to bear back to Mount Phoenix.  Fourteen hundred 
years in coming; blood upon the spear.  Not nearly so long in
coming as the other, but still long ages as time was to mortal
men and women.

     He passed over the Dragon's Ribcage and Jusendo, turned once
over Jusenkyou, and then saw the torches burning in the village.
Shiso thought of what he had been told.  The one gloried in blood
walked among them now.  Apprehension stirring in him, the 
messenger began to fly towards the village.

     He never even heard Shouzin coming.  The Traitor, most hated
of the Lady, fell upon him like a descending hammer, silent as an
owl in flight.  The barbs of Shouzin's tail slashed through his 
left wing, and he squawked with surprise and pain as he went into 
a spinning, tumbling fall.  Shouzin snatched him with both 
long-fingered hands and held the struggling bird up to gaze into
his eyes as he soared higher into the air with a single beat of
his vast black wings.

     "Now, what have we here?" he gurgled thickly through his 
mouthful of fangs.  "You again, tidings-bearer?  This does not do 
at all.  None of your interference now." The raven gazed 
hatefully back at him with solid black eyes, and said nothing.
"Can you die, messenger?" the Traitor continued, tightening his
grip until the bird cried out in pain.  "Answer!"

     The raven did not.  
     
     "We shall see, then."
     
     Down amidst the circle of torches, a blade fell.  Someone
screamed, and a blade fell again.  The wind carried the cries a
short distance, and then they too were lost to the dark.

-End of Chapter 31

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